Period products are a necessity, not luxury items

Health policies need to make pads and tampons affordable and accessible. Taxing the sale of period products is inequitable.

By Emily Zhou

We pace up and down the same aisle of our local pharmacies for the same boxes of cylindrical bleached cotton. But, when legislation imposes a “luxury” tax on this unremarkable purchase, we pay a tax on biology. Where someone lives can impose increases on the price of period products, turning a period from a normal bodily function to consumer indulgence.

A tax that only men or only women have to pay, due to their sex, is unconstitutional. It denies individuals of their right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet, the so-called “tampon tax” does this—adding a sales tax that a state, county, or city government collects on the retail purchase of menstrual products.

Taxing menstrual products and repealing those taxes on a patchwork basis across states, reveals a deeper failure in American public policy. When access to a product that is a necessity to bodily function, at the frequency of menstruation, is contingent on cost, the burden falls directly on the shoulders of themself. Repealing the tax is progress—but without confronting the framework that justified it, we are only treating a symptom, not the disease. This is not a debate over a few cents. It’s about what the government values or more importantly who they value.

“It’s not like we’re buying perfume or snacks,” said Andrea Rix, a senior at Yale who co-founded the Period Poverty Project, a non-profit that advocates for menstrual equity by providing free period products and leading conversations to destigmatize periods, “We’re paying for something our bodies require.”

To understand why the tampon tax hits so hard, it is important to examine the system that made period poverty into the crisis it is today, as well as the direct impacts that each woman across the nation shares. This problem exists on three levels: the individual harms and daily barriers faced by menstruators; the state-level landscape that determines access and affordability; and finally, the federal and international approaches that can guide the U.S. and highlight our shortcomings.

Limited access to a pad or tampon causes unnecessary absences at school or work, unhygienic solutions that can lead to negative health outcomes, and psychological distress. Related national studies report that one in five U.S. teens has missed school due to a lack of proper period products. There’s nothing about this problem that is niche or case-specific—it’s a public health and education concern that is a grave concern in promoting equal opportunity for everyone.

Even after her own “coming of age” experience serving nine years in the male-dominated culture of the U.S. Army, Samantha Lewis felt shocked by the period-shaming she encountered in schools, especially since she taught at Greensboro High School where most faculty and students were female. The prevalence of this issue motivated Lewis to implement lessons that intellectually engage students by addressing global inequities, instilling a sense of purpose through personally meaningful volunteerism, and creating a classroom space that encourages voicing community concerns. Together, Lewis and her students explored WHO and UNICEF-funded initiatives like Menstruation Hygiene Day and the Day for Girls, facilitating discussions that teach proper menstrual hygiene.

In May 2025, 18 states in the US continue to charge a sales tax of 4 percent to 7 percent on period products. For the menstruating residents in these states, this means they must shell out $5–10 every month for period products—and then face a tampon tax on top of that. In a survey conducted among low-income women in St. Louis, 64 percent reported difficulty affording menstrual products and about half of them struggled to budget both food and menstrual products in their annual expenses—being forced to give up one of these necessities. States collect over $150 million a year from this tax. In California, women pay up to $20 million of that amount.

This issue stems from laws that see period products as luxuries, not essentials. Tax authorities impose similar rates on period products as they do on items like decor, toys, and electronics. Whereas, food is either entirely exempt or taxed at a much lower rate across the nation because people understand food is a basic requirement. We should apply this recognition to period products too.

Rix’s work with the Period Poverty Project emphasizes how important grassroots advocacy is. It’s key to ending the tampon tax across the nation. Taking form in community or locally driven activism led by ordinary people, such as community groups organizing free pad drives, students advocating for free products in school bathrooms, and nonprofits like Rix’s. Through her network in San Diego alone, Rix and her team’s “Packing Parties” impact has covered over 33,000 menstrual cycles and distributed upwards of 400,000 products across low-income, homeless, and immigrant populations.

But, the true power in initiatives such as the Period Poverty Project lies in starting conversations to help destigmatize periods, placing a focus on education and addressing harmful gender norms. Although it’s inspiring to see the significant progress made by citizens, specifically young women, it also makes perfect sense— they’re the ones most directly affected by these laws in tangible, everyday ways, from their school environment to their basic well-being.

On the state level, the patchwork of policy defines the United States’ approach to menstrual health. Many states have successfully repealed the tampon tax. This often happened due to community activism from high school students, health advocates, and dedicated lawmakers. This uneven progression toward reform creates a landscape that fragments fairness itself, as geography, not biology, determines menstrual equity.

In 2025, Missouri became one of the latest states that stopped taxing menstrual products. This change lowered prices by less than fifty cents per box. The gesture was largely symbolic, providing proof that legal fixes do not necessarily translate into practical relief.

State action for safe, affordable period products in schools, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and exemption from added sales tax are certainly a step in the right direction. In fact, states have passed over 60 bills to address these goals in the last eight years, with at least 30 states and the District of Columbia having implemented, if not fully, then to some extent. At least 12 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws for free period products in schools. Additionally, 24 states offer them in correctional facilities, and at least three provide them for homeless shelter.

Despite these efforts, legislative success remains low. In 2019, 22 bills aimed at ending the tampon tax were introduced with overwhelming public and bipartisan support. However, none of them led to progress, with some legislators adding insult to injury. In Tennessee, for example, when the tampon tax bill was rejected, lawmakers used a subsequent budget surplus to eliminate a gun ammunition tax. This resulted in, “hunters and shooters” saving $500,000 annually across the state”, as one state representative explained.

At the federal level, the Menstrual Equity for All Act, reintroduced by Representative Grace Meng in 2023, would ensure free period products in schools, prisons, and federal buildings. This bill places menstrual care as a matter of public health and educational equality, not individual choice. Shifting away from the private, consumeristic frame, this introduction reflects a slow but optimistic recognition that the issue extends beyond tax codes, encompassing dignity, access, and civic equality. 

Health organizations worldwide recognize that menstrual products are essential. Agencies focused on global reproductive health classify them as basic items that should be affordable and accessible to everyone. The World Health Organization describes access to menstrual materials as a fundamental connection to the right to health. When a government taxes these essentials, it is not merely raising revenue—it is placing a price on dignity.

Simply put, “The U.S. is behind. Not because the problem is more complex here, but because we haven’t yet decided that menstrual health deserves the same seriousness as other public health priorities,” says Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, the former vice president and the inaugural Women and Democracy Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice NYU.

National data illustrates how nearly a quarter of teens in the United States struggle to afford their necessary products and that more than half often cannot find them readily available in public restrooms. In other words, access continues to rely on factors such as income, location, and whether that specific institution chose to provide support or not. Eliminating the tax may remove a small financial barrier, but without sustained investment in access and distribution, equality remains out of reach.

Scotland provides a valuable example. The 2020 Period Products Act ensured that local authorities, schools, and community centers provided menstrual products at no cost. The measure reframed menstruation as an issue of civic dignity and public responsibility for one another, not private cost.

Tax reform alone will not solve the problem because it treats menstrual products as consumer goods rather than public goods. True reform requires viewing menstrual care through the lens of public health—in the same way society approaches vaccines, sanitation, or, in many cases, male care. Until then, repeal will remain a symbolic gesture rather than systemic change.

When policymakers treat menstrual care as infrastructure, not charity, they strengthen both equity and public health.

Some advocates in the United States have adopted this perspective. Civil rights groups describe the tampon tax as a form of gender-based discrimination and connect the issue to broader struggles for equal access and bodily autonomy. The Menstrual Equity for All Act seeks to make menstrual products available in federally funded spaces, establishing access as a valid condition to be a full participation in society.

The tampon tax may be disappearing, but the logic that created it remains. America still tends to classify women’s health as personal responsibility rather than a collective duty.

Imagine again that shopper at the checkout line. The scanner beeps, the tax appears, and she pays — without thinking about the system behind the receipt. But that receipt tells a story: of decades of policy that regarded a bodily function as a luxury, of reform that progresses at a sluggish pace and fails to reach those who need it most, and of a country still learning to truly recognize menstrual health as part of public health.

When someone buys a box of tampons, they should not have to pay for the nation’s delay in recognizing health as a right. The price of equality shouldn’t be on the register.